“All right, let’s get this done.” Savich pulled out his cell phone and called the local police captain.
EPILOGUE
It was a fine day in Slipper Hollow. By count, nearly half the population of Parlow, Kentucky, had made the five-mile trip to a place few of them had even known about a few short months before.
It certainly wasn’t at all hidden now. There’d been a two-dozen-car caravan driving the two-lane road, winding and turning back on itself, trees pressing in on all sides, mountains hovering, then, all of a sudden, there was a wide turnoff to the right onto another, narrower road, beautifully paved and landscaped with bushes and flowers on both sides. It was a very wide driveway, really, and it led to a beautiful hollow of land in the midst of which sat a magnificent house, built almost entirely by Gillette Janes himself.
It wasn’t to celebrate a wedding that half the town came out on this beautiful, warm fall day, it was the installation of a new cell phone tower right on the property. Now everyone had cell phones, and glory be, they worked. All the time. Deals had been made, Dougie Hollyfield knew, between the newly established Abbott Foundation and the cell phone company.
It was the middle of September, a vivid day, blue sky, the leaves beginning to change color, and the golds and oranges mixed with the remaining green made you weep with the beauty of it.
Rachael and Jack Crowne were engaged now, Sheriff Hollyfield knew, and they sure looked it, always standing close, always touching, even as they greeted people and directed them to the two huge open-sided tents, loaded with tables of food, circular tables and chairs, and hired waiters serving champagne and beer. There was even a band and a dance floor made of plywood.
Agent Dillon Savich stood with his wife, Agent Sherlock. She’d been shot, she’d admitted to Sheriff Hollyfield the day before when he’d asked her about it, and had lost her spleen, but she looked fine now. Their son, Sean, was throwing a football with half a dozen other little boys in the meadow outside the tent.
As for the engaged couple, they’d announced a Christmas wedding here at Slipper Hollow and invited everyone. Sheriff Hollyfield could imagine a White House-sized tree all decorated with lights standing in the middle of the hollow. A bit of snow would be nice.
Dougie Hollyfield, as was his habit, kept his eyes open, watching, and when a little girl ran after a Frisbee and stumbled, he immediately ran toward her. He was so fast he even beat her mother. He looked up to see Gillette Janes speaking to Jack Crowne’s older sister, dark-haired, tall and leggy like her brother, a lawyer. They looked mighty interested in each other.
He remembered how badly the house had been shot up, and he’d had to deal with the aftermath of all those people trying to kill not just Rachael, but Jack Crowne and Gillette Janes himself. What a mess that had been. But it seemed to have changed things here quite a bit, beginning with the huge building project Gillette had begun two weeks later when he’d opened up Slipper Hollow to the world around it.
Dougie Hollyfield’s cell phone blasted out “Born Free,” programmed especially for him by Agent Savich the previous day. He answered it and grinned hugely at the clear, crisp voice of one of his deputies. “What did you say? Mrs. Mick’s car broke down and she’s in labor and alone? Well, why didn’t you call Dr. Post? You don’t have his cell number?” Dougie gave it to him. “Look, he’s here, so I’ll tell him his fun is over and to meet you at the hospital with Mrs. Mick.”
He flipped his cell closed, accepted a glass of very nice champagne from a passing waiter, and walked toward Dr. Post, who was laughing at something Suzette from Monk’s Café was saying to him.
Funny how life worked, he thought, and waved to Dr. Post, who turned and lost his smile.
The cell tower party lasted until midnight. Everyone was calling everyone else, even when they stood three feet apart, and everyone was exchanging cell numbers.
It was a glorious night, a half-moon high in the sky, the music slow and dreamy now, couples dancing.
Dougie Hollyfield didn’t think there was any more champagne in Slipper Hollow.
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Catherine Coulter’s newest FBI thriller,
KNOCKOUT
Now available from G. P. Putnam’s Sons!
Everyone shut up! All of you—get down and put your faces on the floor!” The man punctuated his order with a half dozen shots fired into the air from a submachine gun. Chunks of ceiling plaster fell onto the marble floor. In a few seconds, everyone lay flat, no one moving a muscle, the echoes of their shocked screams thick in the air.
Savich’s first thought was Thank God Sean’s not here with me. He slipped his hand in his jacket pocket, pressed two keys on his cell phone and lay as still as the twenty other people in the First Union Bank of Washington, D.C. He heard some sobs, but for the most part everyone lay on their stomachs in heart-racing, petrified silence, noses against the marble floor.
He heard Sherlock’s voice. “Hello? Hello?”
The man screamed, “You worker bees behind the counter, don’t even think of pressing the alarm! You, yes you, Mr. Loan Officer. Get me the bank manager now! Now, or this asshole dies!” Savich slowly shifted his head to see Buzz Riley, the security guard, an ex-cop Savich had known for five years, with a snub-nosed .38 barrel stuck in his ear by a man maybe two inches taller than Riley was, with a lanky build and big hands that made the .38 look like a toy.
Savich knew who they were and it wasn’t good. The media had dubbed them the Gang of Four, and they had been making a name for themselves as they zigzagged their way across Kentucky and Virginia during the past four weeks. And now they were making their debut bank robbery here in D.C. What was different about this group was that two of the four robbers were women. That, and the fact they were killers. When they burst into a bank, people died. To date, six people had been killed, all four bank security guards and two customers. Riley had to be scared out of his mind.
Another robber fired a spurt of bullets into the air that thudded against the high, old-fashioned ceiling, raining down more plaster, digging into the graceful 1930s molding, sending chunks of wood flying down. This time there weren’t any screams, only a couple of sharp, gasping breaths, then silence. No one moved. From the corner of his eye, Savich saw they were using Colt 9mm submachine guns, deadly and fast, thirty-two rounds a clip.
Another robber, this one a woman, yelled, “Where is the manager?”
Mac Jamison, proud of his thick mustache, too heavy, but just about ready to join the gym, he’d told Savich, walked slowly through the doors from the back, his hands clasped behind his head. “I’m Jamison. I’m the manager.”
The woman said, “Think of me as your friendly Easter Bunny, here to gather up my eggs,” and laughed. Like the other three, she was dressed all in black, a black ski mask covering her head and face. “I know you got your delivery from the Federal Reserve, so don’t give me any butt-stupid crap about not having any money here. Now, you and I are taking a trip to the vault and loading up.”
“But—”
“Move!” She screamed and sprayed a dozen bullets from her Colt not a foot away from Jamison’s head. Savich heard a window explode. The woman walked right up to Jamison and poked the gun barrel in his gut. “NOW!”
One of the robbers followed her, fanning his Colt around, whistling, of all things, and covering her back. That left the other woman and the man holding Riley around the neck. She was in Savich’s line of sight, small and in constant motion, sweeping her weapon over the employees and the bank customers. Fear poured off the rows of still bodies, lacing the air with a rancid smell. Savich lay flat on his belly at the edge of the group.
He saw her scuffed black booted feet coming toward him. She stopped. He felt the weight of her gaze, her sharp intake of breath. “Hey, I know who you are.”
This wasn’t a woman, this voice was young, high with excitement, a girl’s voice. She kicked him in the ribs. “Well, ain’t this my lucky day. Jeff, look at what we got. H
e’s that FBI guy. Remember, we saw him on TV a couple of weeks ago?” She kicked him again, harder. “Big bastard federal cop. You’re the one who brought down those rich old dorks, right?”
Jeff, the guy holding Riley, shouted, “Pay attention, kid. You’re supposed to keep your eye on all these bugs, make sure they don’t try to crawl away or do anything dumb. Mind your own. He’s not important.”
Her voice went higher, shriller. How old was she? “Didn’t you hear me? I said he’s this hotshot FBI agent!”
“Yeah, so who cares? Flat on his belly now, isn’t he?” And Jeff laughed. For the hell of it, he kicked a woman bank employee in the leg. She flinched but didn’t make a sound.
The girl said, her voice pumped with adrenaline, “Hey, jerk, you are him, aren’t you?”
Savich looked up full into her masked face. She was fine-boned, thin, probably had to stretch to make five foot three. He stared into her wild, excited dark eyes glittering behind the black ski mask. “Yeah,” he said, “I’m that jerk.”
She sang out, laughing, “I got me a bona fide FBI agent, right here at my feet. What a suuu-prize! You scared yet, big man? I’m gonna get to kill me a real-life FBI agent!”
Jeff said, “Until we’ve got our money, we’re not popping anybody.” Jeff sounded on the manic side himself, forty years old, maybe fifty, a smoker’s voice, and like the girl, he seemed in perpetual motion.
Savich heard Mac Jamison yell “No!” and then there was a single gunshot, obscenely loud in the close confines of the vault. The two robbers came running out carrying dark cloth bags stuffed with money. In a voice frenzied with manic pleasure and excitement, the girl sang, “You got my birthday present?”
The woman yelled, “I sure do, sweetie! Now, let’s get out of here. Okay, Jeff, take care of business!”
“I got me some business too!” the girl sang out, her voice jumping high and uncontrolled.
Jeff, the robber holding Riley, shouted out, “Bye bye, dirt-bag!”
Savich had a second, no more, and no choice.
Catherine Coulter, Tailspin
(Series: FBI Thriller # 12)
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